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New deal brings UASC onto North Atlantic – but upsets shippers

[ February 16, 2015   //   ]

Middle East-owned container line UASC has signed another partnership – with CMA CGM and Hamburg Süd, to bring it onto the North Atlantic service for the first time. Under a vessel sharing agreement, the service will call at north-west Europe, Southampton, New York, Norfolk, Charleston and Savannah and vice-versa, with a weekly capacity allocation of around 3,300teu.

The new service will start in the third week of May 2015. More details on transit times and allocation will be published soon.

UASC has already joined the Ocean3 alliance with CMA CGM and China Shipping Container Lines, in January and has also entered into a general cooperation agreement with Hamburg Süd to join the South American trades for the first time, with services due to start in mid-April.

UASC president and CEO Jørn Hinge, commented: “This announcement marks an exciting new chapter for UASC as we enter the North Atlantic service and further cement our position as an emerging global carrier.”

He added that collaboration with other carriers “ensures that we can provide our customers with the widest scope of global services and the lowest possible unit costs, whilst growing in a responsible fashion and without adding unnecessary capacity.”

UASC is currently building 17 new ships; eleven 15,000teu vessels (A15) – the world’s first LNG-ready ultra-large container vessels and six 18,800teu vessels (A18).

However, the latest move, as well as the growing cooperation between between CMA-CGM and Hamburg Süd has incurred the displeasure of the European Shippers’ Council which said it would bring the container liner market “one step closer to total convergence. This will reinforce the risk of reducing service quality and sailing frequency as well as free choice for manufacturers and retailers, as well as enhancing prices,” it argued.
ESC believes that maritime liner competition should be seen from a global perspective and not at a regional level. It also called on the competition authorities to develop “uniform process and analysis” and for national competition authorities to agree between themselves competitive sensitive data that could be monitored.

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